Implementation Strategies: Policymakers
Policymakers—including governors, legislators, state board members, state education agency leaders, and local school board members, along with policy influencers like representatives of nonprofit policy support organizations—need a unified, aligned vision of pathways for learning to guide the creation of policies and procedures at the state, district, and school level. These policies must clear barriers to student participation, align student outcomes and stakeholder needs, and provide resources to ensure that all students have access and can succeed. But policies alone are not sufficient. In order for them to have impact, policies at all levels of state educational systems must be aligned with each other according to the vision for pathways. For instance, when policy calls for learning experiences outside of the classroom but district graduation requirements include rigid, credit-based sets of course requirements, students will find that any pathway they choose will somehow have to fit the content requirements or seat time of specific courses. In rural areas, pathways might be encouraged, but funding for transportation anywhere except to school or a regional career and technical education center might be difficult. In urban areas, labor and education departments might have competing internship and apprenticeship programs. Across districts and states, students who move from one school to another may find that their pathway experiences are not recognized academically in their new school. In all of these examples, underfunded schools may struggle to staff positions that make pathways possible, leaving their success dependent on individual staff members and ad-hoc groups of teachers, administrators, and students. Well-crafted, aligned policies and procedures can help overcome barriers, incentivize successes, and smooth the way for pathways.
For role-specific resources, please visit our appendix.
By policymakers, we mean:
Strategies for Policymakers
- Adopt state statutes, rules, and guidance that support personalized learning and multiple, flexible pathways for learning and graduation.
- Identify and align existing laws and rules that might be out of alignment with new policy regarding flexible and multiple pathways.
- Use state funding systems—and the use of federal and philanthropic grants—to incentivize the creation of pathways, particularly for students from underrepresented groups.
- Align and coordinate pathway programs across state government so that different branches do not compete for partners and resources.
- Ensure that school accountability measures align with and encourage access to pathway programs in districts.
- Support professional organizations, like school board and principals associations, in aligning local requirements with state statutes, rules, and guidance.
- Enact local graduation requirements and processes that support, rather than limit, personalized learning.
Equity Check
- Do the schools in your state with the fewest resources have the most limited access to pathways?
- Do existing funding mechanisms create inequities in the ways that schools can implement multiple and flexible pathways?
- Do state and local graduation requirements make it hard for students to use learning outside of the classroom to meet those requirements?
- How do districts and the state report access, progress, performance, and completion of students in pathways? How are they illustrating gaps among groups of students, if they exist?
- What data will help us understand the ways in which pathways are or are not producing more equitable outcomes for students?
- Do existing state or local statutes and policies related to flexible and multiple pathways ignore or establish barriers to participation for certain student groups and populations?
- As policies descend in grain size (from state to local) are there unintended outcomes for schools with fewer resources in terms of turning policy into practice?
